Take 2. FRIDAY'S GUIDE TO MOVIES & MUSIC. Movie review.

`Funny Bones' Unpeels Mystery Of Comedy

It would be difficult to pick the biggest surprise in Peter Chelsom's wonderful "Funny Bones." But, if pressed, my choice would have to be that it's so serious about laughing matters.

A young would-be comic, the son of a world-famous comedian, bombs in Vegas in front of his dad and scurries back to Blackpool, England, his childhood home, to learn the secret of successful comedy-and the secret of his father's success. Eventually he's told the hard truth: "You're not funny."

Along the way, however, we do meet funny people and learn how funny can be bought and sold and exploited. We also learn the difference between telling funny stories and simply being funny.

Tommy Fawkes (Oliver Platt, an underrated mop-headed actor who typically brings a lot of buried hostility to his roles) is neither fun nor funny. He works at it, but he's no match for his overbearing dad (Jerry Lewis, perfectly cast), who can't resist doing a few minutes impromptu, thereby stealing his son's Vegas audience before the kid has a chance to succeed. "I'm not going to play it safe anymore," says a crushed Tommy after the gig.

He's off to Blackpool, a carnival-filled town and traditional fount for physical comedy. There Tommy hopes to buy himself a comedy act and return to America triumphant.

But rather than proceed in a linear fashion and just tell Tommy's story, writer-director Chelsom ("Hear My Song") intercuts another father-son drama through flashbacks, the story of a brilliant, young physical comic named Jack Parker, who is part of a family of legendary English vaudevillians. Jack, too, is disturbed when we first meet him. He has climbed the tower of an amusement park in the center of Blackpool and he won't come down. The source of his trauma is also a buried secret. "Funny Bones" reveals that father-son rivalries are not bounded by any ocean.

"Funny Bones" has the brittle edge of most working-class British films. A character's nature has everything to do with his lack of nurture. Polite doesn't cut it in the streets or in the theater. Young Jack Parker has his scars, and so do his vaudevillian uncles, Bruno and Thomas, who are pitched by Tommy to sell him one of their acts. But stepping in to block the sale and preserve the Parker family tradition is Jack's French-born mother, played by Leslie Caron. "How do we know that you won't make such a bloody cock-up of this act that it'll never be seen again?" she asks.

Like so many good films, "Funny Bones" can't be summarized in a sentence. Its central mystery is a meditation on the source of talent. But how would that fly in a Hollywood pitch session?

Mixing in black-and-white footage for flashbacks, director Chelsom almost goes over the top with his artistry, much like a Terry Gilliam with his epic "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen." But in the end, Chelsom creates a showbiz world that is so insular and filled with anger and expertise that we feel totally closed off from people who are funny for a living. "Funny Bones" is like a peek behind a magician's curtain. But after one look you want your innocence back.

``FUNNY BONES''

(star) (star) (star) 1/2

Directed by Peter Chelsom; written by Peter Chelsom and Peter Flannery; photographed by Eduardo Serra; edited by Martin Walsh; production designed by Caroline Hanania; music by John Altman; produced by Simon Fields and Chelsom. A Hollywood Pictures release; opens Friday at Pipers Alley and outlying theaters. Running time: 2:08. MPAA rating: R. Language, violence.